Soul Knows No Bars: A Writer’s Journey Doing Poetry with Inmates

Free and Open to the Public

Book Launch with Patrica Roth Schwartz

Patricia Roth Schwartz is a poet, writer of fiction and memoir, and teacher. She holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College, an MA from Trinity College (CT), and an MACP from Antioch/ N Eng. Widely published in literary journals, she has had published 7 volumes of poetry, plus a full-length collection of short fiction which won a Lambda Literary Award. Residing in the Finger Lakes region of NY state, she has given readings and taught widely throughout the region in numerous and diverse venues for 25 years. Many of these events have been funded by P & W. Her work appears in the Story Walk and Poets’ Walk installations in Rochester.

For 14 years she volunteered weekly at Auburn Correctional Facility, a maximum security men’s prison, conducting a poetry workshop with inmates; she has had 4 volumes of their work published, and often did/does readings from their work. She has been facilitating a Writers’ Support Group funded by P & W which is in its 5^thyear. She is a co-founder of The Literary Guild of the Finger Lakes, a grass-roots organization dedicated to the creative expression through the arts.